Going vegan for the environment - Animal Aid (2024)

FAQs

Does going vegan actually help animals? ›

If all U.S.-based dogs and cats went vegan, researchers estimated that the lives of 2 billion livestock animals a year could be saved, along with billions of aquatic animals.

The research showed that vegan diets resulted in 75% less climate-heating emissions, water pollution and land use than diets in which more than 100g of meat a day was eaten. Vegan diets also cut the destruction of wildlife by 66% and water use by 54%, the study found.

Billions of farm animals would no longer be destined for our dinner plates and if we couldn't return them to the wild, they might be slaughtered, abandoned or taken into sanctuaries.

The rule of thumb is that each day, a person who eats a vegan diet saves 4,164 Liters of water, 18 kg of grain, 3 m² of forested land, 9 kg CO2, and one animal life.

Research has shown that a vegan diet can help do the following: Promote weight loss. Reduce your risk of heart disease by lowering cholesterol levels. Lower your chances of getting certain types of cancer, such as colon cancer.

This also means that everyone can help halt climate change just by eating great-tasting plant-based foods. In fact, a study published in New Scientist magazine shows that each person can reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that his or her diet contributes to climate change by up to 60 per cent—just by going vegan.

Changing from a meat-loving diet to vegetarianism can decrease one's carbon footprint from diet by over 50 percent, depending on the change. That's the equivalent of driving 1,300 miles less per year.

Each individual person who goes vegan can save 200 animals per year, 1.3 million gallons of water, and 1.5 tons of carbon emissions, and the UN reports that a vegan diet can feed many more people than an animal-based diet.

In all cases, if the world were to go vegan overnight or very quickly, the animals who cannot be returned to the wild will be slaughtered, abandoned, or taken care of in sanctuaries. Most likely, the world will go vegan gradually, and the animals in captivity will be gradually phased out.

Could the earth sustain if everyone was vegan? ›

“If everyone were vegan, only a quarter of current farmland would be needed. Most is currently used to grow plants to feed animals.”

Going vegan is one of the best things you can do to help stop animal cruelty. By refusing to pay for animal products, you reduce the demand for them, which ensures fewer animals are bred to suffer and die on farms and in slaughterhouses.

A vegetarian diet would reduce premature deaths. “We would see a global mortality reduction of 6-10%, thanks to a lessening of coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke and some cancers.”

The upshot is that a world entirely without meat would require about one-third more cropland — and therefore, more energy-intensive fertilizer, pesticides and tractor fuel — to feed everyone, says Hannah van Zanten, a sustainable food systems researcher at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

If that's the difference a vegan makes in one day, imagine the number of animals that are saved every month, every year, or over the course of a lifetime simply by choosing a vegan diet. That's around 30 animals a month, 365 animals a year, and thousands of animals in a single human lifetime.

In general, the answer is yes. However, many vegans avoid exotic animals, including birds and fish. These animals live substantially different lives in the wild. Therefore, keeping them in small tanks or cages often feels inappropriate to vegans.

Many (but not all) dogs and cats do well on a vegan diet, so watch them closely to ensure that the new food agrees with them. You may need to make adjustments if you notice skin or digestive issues or any other health problems. Try a different brand or recipe, and if necessary, revert to the previous diet.

Although eating an animal that has died of natural causes could be seen as harmless, if taken subjectively and acknowledged as an equal life rather than just a piece of meat, doing so would not align with our usual morals or beliefs.